Despite harboring ambitions to make a biopic about Salvador Dali, director Simon West is sticking with action for now. He’s got Jason Statham film The Mechanic, a remake of a Charles Bronson film, ready to release. He’ll next direct Dwayne Johnson in Protection. And now he’s being linked to The Medallion, a thriller produced by McG and written by Safe House writer David Guggenheim. Read More »

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Briefly: It’s Ryan Reynolds day! There was just talk of Green Lantern sequels, Deadpool and R.I.P.D., and now there’s word that Reynolds is the ‘top choice’ to work opposite Denzel Washington in the thriller Safe House. Deadline says that Reynolds is the frontrunner in a giant pack of young actors that want the role. Shia LaBeouf, Taylor Kitsch, Chris Pine, Sam Worthington, Garrett Hedlund, Zac Efron, Channing Tatum, Chris Hemsworth and Jake Gyllenhaal are all said to be in contention for the part. Note that there’s no offer yet, so this is just talk for now.

Reynolds (or whoever gets the gig) would play a young CIA agent tasked with transporting a criminal (Denzel Washington) to safety. As we reported before, David Guggenheim’s story was snagged by Universal in a bidding war, and has Snabba Cash director Daniel Espinosa set to helm. The basic setup for the script goes as follows:

Set in South America, Safe House follows a young U.S. intelligence agent who must go on the run with a newly arrived prisoner (Denzel’s potential role) after his titular safe house comes under attack — think of a mix between Collateral and Three Days of the Condor.

Denzel Washington can make a hell of a bad guy, and he’s now negotiating a new role where he’d play the antagonist — a lethal prisoner, in fact — in a buzzed-about script called Safe House. Read More »

Universal has purchased David Guggenheim‘s spec Safe House for $600k against $900k, winning out against two other movie studios in a bidding war. The action thriller tells the story of a CIA agent who becomes the only survivor after a CIA safe house attack, and must help a dangerous prisoner avoid being killed as they escape to a second safe house, “outmaneuvering various forces that want them both dead.”